


Gratitude

by wingedspirit



Series: Winter 2019 Prompts [26]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 31 Days of Ineffables Advent Calendar Challenge (Good Omens), 31 Days of Ineffables Advent Calendar Challenge 2019 (Good Omens), Comedy, M/M, Other, POV Outsider, Shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22058209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingedspirit/pseuds/wingedspirit
Summary: Gabriel and Beelzebub get together and go shopping.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Beelzebub/Gabriel (Good Omens)
Series: Winter 2019 Prompts [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560823
Comments: 29
Kudos: 167





	Gratitude

**Author's Note:**

> Follows on from [Making Merry](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21795140), so you'll want to read that first, if you haven't already.
> 
> Written for [drawlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drawlight)’s [advent calendar prompt list](https://drawlight.tumblr.com/post/188869931294/aziraphale-crowley-for-half-an-hour-youve-been) (day 26, cider).

“Gabriel?” Uriel knocks on the door of Gabriel’s office and walks in. The office is dark; Gabriel is still where she left him three days ago, sitting at his desk, face buried in his arms. “Really? It’s been _three days_.”

Gabriel makes a low, incoherent, drawn-out noise of complaint.

“Well,” Uriel says, crisply, “you’d best get yourself together. Beelzebub has requested a meeting. The Serpentine Bar and Kitchen in Hyde Park, in two hours.”

Gabriel makes a shorter, but still incoherent noise.

“Excellent. I’ll let them know you’ll be there.”

⁂

“Why is everything so bright? And loud? And bright?”

Beelzebub stares. “Are you hungover?”

“No, of course not.” Gabriel pauses. “What does that mean?”

He must be having them on. “It’s when you have too much to drink, and you don’t miracle it away.”

“Oh.” Gabriel squints at them, looking for all the world like he’s trying to get his brain to work and failing. “You can miracle it away?”

Sa— _Someone_ grant them patience. “Like this,” they say, waving a hand and pulling the hangover from Gabriel, none too gently.

Gabriel groans loudly in relief. It’s a good sound; Beelzebub thinks they’d like to hear it more often. “Oh, _thank_ you. That’s much better.” He straightens, and pastes on his usual polite smile. “Now. What did you want to discuss?”

Beelzebub pulls out the tablet, unlocks it and hands it over. “This.”

The video plays. Gabriel goes bright red, then sheet white, and keeps alternating between the two for the duration of the video. “I am going to _kill_ them,” he says, vehemently, when it’s over.

Beelzebub raises their eyebrows and clears their throat.

Gabriel blanches. “I, uh. I can explain.”

“Please do.”

Gabriel clears his throat, then clears it again. Then makes a disjointed series of noises that would never qualify as words, never mind a complete sentence, no matter how charitably inclined a listener might be.

Beelzebub very pointedly drums their claws on the tabletop. They don’t normally wear claws, of course, but a little intimidation never hurt anybody.

Gabriel flushes bright red and opens and closes his mouth soundlessly several times. “It would make me very happy,” he manages, eventually, “if you would do me the great honour of allowing me to court you.”

Beelzebub makes a show of considering, dragging out the pause for effect. They already know what they’re going to say, of course. “No.”

Gabriel’s face falls. “Oh,” he says, dejectedly.

And bless it all, Beelzebub was planning on stringing this out a while longer, but Gabriel looks so much like a kicked hellhound puppy, it’s absurd. And adorable.

So they lean across the table, get a good hold on his ridiculous tie, and yank him into a kiss.

⁂

It takes them both a while to catch their breath. Not that they need to breathe, really, but it somehow feels appropriate to, when doing what they just did.

“That was… quite something.”

Beelzebub buzzes softly in agreement.

“We’re going to have to figure out a way to thank the demon and Aziraphale.”

“Must we? I thought you wanted to kill them.”

“That was before — well.” Gabriel blushes. “ _Before_. Let it not be said that I am ungrateful and unappreciative.”

“Fine, fine.” Beelzebub waves a hand vaguely. “We’ll szzzzend them a note.”

“Absolutely not! We must find them a gift, Beelzy. Something appropriate to the magnitude of what they did for us.”

“Call me Beelzy again,” Beelzebub says, firmly, “and I will bite you.”

Gabriel blushes harder. “Ooooh. Would you?”

Beelzebub blinks, shrugs, and rolls back on top of him.

⁂

“So,” Gabriel says, much later, after rounds two, three, four and five. “Any suggestions for a gift for the demon and Aziraphale?”

Beelzebub scowls. “This was your idea.”

“Of course, but —” Gabriel shrugs — jostling Beelzebub a little, since they’re still nestled up against his side, their head on his shoulder. “I have to admit I’m not exactly well-versed in human things. You seem better informed.”

“A little,” Beelzebub allows. They never thought they’d be thankful for Crowley’s obnoxious penchant for including a lot of extraneous information about humans in his presentations, and yet here they are. “I believe there is something called a ‘gift basket’, that humans use as a token of appreciation for those they have a professional relationship with. I believe any human shop would put together one upon request.”

“Oh!” Gabriel brightens. “Aziraphale has lived among the humans for many years, in the same location. If we purchase one of these basket gifts —”

“— gift baskets —”

“— whatever they’re called, if we purchase one from a shop in that area, the humans might know enough about the demon and Aziraphale to help put one together that they will like.”

“That’s as good an idea as any. Shall we?”

⁂

“…and so,” the tall customer concludes his spiel, “we are looking to purchase a basket gift —”

“ _Gift basket_ ,” the short one interjects, pointedly.

“— for A—aaahhh, Mr Fell, with whom you are hopefully familiar? And his de— _ow!_ ”

The short one smiles, all fake innocence, as if she hadn’t just elbowed the tall one in the side. “His dear companion, whom you might know as Mr Crowley.”

Jacob rubs at the bridge of his nose. He is not paid enough for this. “Which is why you came to a bookshop to look for a gift for someone who owns a bookshop.”

The tall one nods eagerly, with a wide, bright smile.

Jacob sighs. “Let me see what I can find.”

Of course he knows Mr Fell and Mr Crowley — they’re practically an institution, here in Soho. Mr Fell hardly reads anything modern, but Mr Crowley might, he thinks, enjoy some books on gardening; so that’s the section he heads for, the two weird customers following.

“Right. There’s this one, for instance,” he says, pulling a book on fruit tree care off an endcap. “It just came out last week, so I doubt they own it yet.”

“Excellent!” The tall one claps his hands. “We’ll take ten.”

Jacob blinks, thrown for a loop. “Ten?”

“Twenty?” The tall one corrects, hesitantly. “I am not certain — how many copies would be appropriate for…?”

The short one facepalms, and mutters something under her breath. Jacob isn’t standing quite close enough to make it out, but he’d swear it’s something along the lines of ‘at least you’re good-looking’.

He appreciates the appearance of at least a tiny hint of a clue. “Nobody is going to be happy to receive twenty identical copies of the same book as a gift,” he says, very patiently.

“But I know for a fact A — Mr Fell owns multiple copies of some books,” the tall one says, frowning in confusion.

“He _owns a bookshop_ ,” Jacob says, pointedly. “He owns multiple copies for the same reason we have multiple copies of each book we sell. Besides, I know for a fact his are not all identical; he specialises in misprints and unique editions.”

The tall one looks blank. “I… see,” he says, slowly, with the air of someone who hasn’t understood a single word.

Jacob sighs again. “Tell you what. You go wait for me at the checkout,” he points, “and I’ll put together a set of — say, thirty books? — that Mr Fell and Mr Crowley will likely enjoy. It shouldn’t take me longer than half an hour, forty minutes at worst. Feel free to browse in the meanwhile.”

“But —”

“Thank you very much,” the short one says, dragging the tall one towards the checkout. “We really appreciate your help.”

He really isn’t paid enough for this.

⁂

Gabriel hefts the basket of books thoughtfully. The shop assistant had apologised to them for not having an actual basket to put the books in; they assured him it was fine, but he’d still insisted on gift-wrapping every book individually. Of course, as soon as they were out of the shop and out of sight, Gabriel had miracled up a basket and put the books in it, and discarded the shopping bags. It looks perfect, everything he might’ve imagined a gift basket to be, and yet…

“Do you know, I don’t think this is enough.”

Beelzebub gapes at him.

“What if they do not like any of the books? They may be offended. We’re trying to show appreciation, we should make sure we do it the right way.”

“There are more shops,” Beelzebub says, slowly, “and money is not exactly an object for us.”

“Exactly!” Gabriel snaps his fingers, miracling the gift basket to his office in Heaven. It will be safe there, until the time comes to move it to Aziraphale’s bookshop. “Where to next?”

⁂

“Can I help you?” Lucia knows she’s not supposed to hurry the customers, but the odd couple have been stood in the same spot, not moving, looking extremely lost, for the last ten minutes. She’s never seen two people look more different — one tall, handsome and extremely masculine, one short, dangerous-looking and of indeterminate gender.

“Yes, I believe you may be able to! We would like to purchase a gift basket,” tall-and-handsome says.

“How lovely,” Lucia says, politely, only barely managing to resist the urge to gesture towards the gift basket section, which, since it’s the holiday season, takes up the majority of the shop. Instead, she pulls out one of the leaflets advertising the gift baskets and hands it over. “Let me know which one you’d like.”

The customers study the leaflet for another ten minutes, while Lucia does her best not to fidget impatiently. Finally, tall-and-handsome looks up at her with a megawatt smile. “Yes.”

“…yes?”

“Yes, these will do.”

“Great — which one did you want? If you want a small one, I can recommend one of our honey gift baskets. We have local honey, international honey, single-origin honey, or we also have a gift basket that has some honey, two beeswax candles, a bar of propolis and honey soap and a jar of bee pollen. Or if you want a larger gift basket —”

“Yes,” tall-and-handsome interrupts. “One of each, please.”

“One of… each?”

Tall-and-handsome nods firmly, still smiling, while short-and-dangerous shrugs, with a ‘what can you do?’ expression. “One of each.”

⁂

“We’d like to buy a gift basket.”

“A gift — I’m sorry, sir. You’re aware you’re in a jewelry shop? We don’t usually…”

“It’s quite alright if you don’t have a basket, we can provide our own. Now, I’m hoping you know Mr Fell and Mr Crowley — might you have an idea of what they’d like?”

⁂

“A gift basket of plants,” Catherine says slowly. “For Mr Crowley.”

“Yes. He likes plants, right?”

Of course Mr Crowley likes plants. He’d been by the shop just last week, had given her selection of potted plants a long, scathing look, and had declared them common, stunted, underdeveloped and overpriced. And the thing is, he wasn’t even wrong. But she’s running a florist, not a garden shop.

She winces. “I’ll do my best.”

⁂

“I’m afraid there isn’t much we can do in terms of a gift basket, Mr Gabriel,” Sean says, apologetically. “As you well know, a proper suit needs to be tailored to the wearer, so your Mr Fell and Mr Crowley would have to visit us themselves. We could fill a small basket with socks, ties, and pocket squares, and add a gift certificate, perhaps?”

“Of course, of course.” Mr Gabriel’s smile is as blinding as usual. “Do as you think is best.”

“Very well. Might you have an idea of what colours —” Sean cuts himself off. The woman who’d entered the shop with Mr Gabriel had wandered off during their conversation, and is now busily pulling one of each kind of silk scarf the shop carries from the shelves in the ladies’ section. “Excuse me, ma’am, may I help you?”

The woman walks back to the counter, holding a heap of scarves in her arms that’s half as tall as her. “Put these in the gift basket, too.”

Sean wisely opts not to ask any questions. “Yes, ma’am.”

⁂

“How specific do you want to get?” David asks. “I have to warn you, Mr Fell and Mr Crowley are wine connoisseurs.”

“As specific as needed,” one of the customers says, the other nodding vigorously, with a bright smile. “Money is no object.”

“Very good, sir. So,” David says, slowly, “one gift basket of red, one of white, one of rosé, one of dessert wine. One of champagne, one of Prosecco, one of assorted sparkling wine. Then — we mainly sell wine, as I’m sure you understand, but we also carry beer, cider, whisky…”

David keeps listing, and the customers just smile and nod. He’s not made a sale this big in decades.

⁂

Uriel knocks on the door to Gabriel’s office. “Gabriel? Are you back yet?”

There is no answer, so she opens the door — or tries to. It doesn’t move more than a fraction before hitting something. That’s never happened before.

The door opens just enough for her to look inside, and —

Baskets. The office is covered in baskets, stacked in teetering piles, overflowing with a wide variety of material objects.

Uriel considers for a brief moment, and decides she doesn’t want to know. She pulls the door closed, very carefully, and leaves.

⁂

“So,” Gabriel says, cheerfully, crossing the last shop they’d visited off the list he’d put together five shops into the whole endeavour. “That’s bath products sorted. Do you mind if I read the whole thing out to you, to make sure we got everything?”

“Of course, go right ahead,” Beelzebub says, cursing, for the umpteenth time today, the moment the words ‘gift basket’ came out of their mouth. Staying in bed would’ve been so much more pleasant.

The reading of the list takes a solid five minutes, because of course it does. That’s what happens when you buy so many gift baskets you lose count.

“…sushi, tea, gourmet hot chocolate, music, scented candles and bath products,” Gabriel finishes, triumphantly.

“Yep, we got them all.” In reality, Beelzebub couldn’t really tell, but they figure one basket more or less is not going to make that much of a difference.

“Excellent. Now all we need to do is miracle everything into Aziraphale’s bookshop, and — wait. We missed one.”

Beelzebub groans. “I just told you we got everything on the list.”

“This wasn’t on the list. It’s the shop right near Aziraphale’s bookshop. I’ve never been inside, I have no idea what it sells, but — it’s called ‘Garden of Eden’. That’s an inspiring name, is it not?”

“Inspiring, sure,” Beelzebub says, automatically; and then their brain catches up. They know that shop; Crowley mentioned it in a report, once. “You know what? You’re right. Capital idea. Let’s go.”

⁂

“Welcome to the Garden of Eden,” Sage says, trying their best to keep the boredom out of their voice, not looking up from their phone. It’s not exactly the kind of shop that invites interaction. Most customers come in the door already knowing what they want to buy, skulk to where it can be found, pick it off the shelf, take it to the counter and pay for it, and then leave, never once having made eye contact. Sometimes there’s someone who tries to stick product down their trousers prematurely and walk out without paying, but that’s what the security tagging is for.

“Ah, good afternoon, young lady. We’d like to buy a gift basket.”

“Not a lady, and we don’t do gift baskets,” Sage says, indifferently, still not looking up.

“Ah, my apologies. Might you be able to help anyway? I’m not familiar with —”

The sentence is followed by an inarticulate noise that seems, somehow, to be made entirely of consonants. Sage looks up, startled.

The man is very tall, and very, very red. He’s staring at the display of the shop’s most popular products, gaping.

“You’ll have to forgive him,” the man’s companion says, smirking. “It’s his first time in one of these. He wasn’t expecting it.” They’re short and — oh, wow. Sage wishes they could pull off gender-neutral that well. They might have to ask for tips.

“Did he even know what kind of shop he was walking into?” Sage raises their eyebrows.

The man’s companion cackles. “No, but believe it or not, it was his idea. Now, listen — the plan, at least on his part, was to buy something for Mr Fell and Mr Crowley. You know who they are, I expect, given the location of your shop?”

“You’re not trying to embarrass them, are you? I won’t help you do that.” Mr Fell is a semi-regular customer, always polite and courteous to a fault, and Mr Crowley, who sometimes happens to be Miss Crowley instead, has been nothing but lovely the handful of times he’s dropped in.

“Of course not, though they may get embarrassed anyway.” They shrug. “If you’d rather not pick things out for them, that’s fine, we’ll just skip it. I don’t have that kind of relationship with them. Honestly, I mostly just came in here because I wanted to see his reaction.” They jab a thumb towards the man, who is still speechless and crimson in the face.

“Ah, well. We do offer gift certificates, in that case,” Sage says, carefully, “but there are a few things I can grab I know they’ll like. You don’t want to look, do you? Because if so, I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with just a gift certificate. We do care about privacy.”

“Satan, no.” They shudder expressively. “I really don’t want to know. Just put them in a closed box and give me the total.”

“Alright. I’ll be a little while — feel free to look around.”

“Great.” They poke the man in the side, so hard he yelps. “Come on, big boy. Let’s go find something fun for ourselves, in the meantime.”

⁂

“Thank you, Crowley. I had a lovely time tonight.”

Crowley is aware he’s smiling foolishly, and does not care one whit. “Am I forgiven for standing you up the other week, then?”

“Ah, nothing to forgive. You had good reason.” Aziraphale smiles, that soft, brilliant smile Crowley loves so well. “Would you like to come in?”

“Of course.” Technically, he’d moved into the bookshop weeks before; but Aziraphale still asks him every evening, something which Crowley finds inordinately charming.

“After you, then.” Aziraphale pushes open the door and stands aside.

The lights come on by themselves when Crowley walks in, as they always do, and —

“What the fuck,” Crowley says, faintly.

Baskets. An enormous quantity of gift baskets, covering all available surfaces, perched perilously on top of shelves and book stacks alike. The basket nearest the door has a silver envelope attached to the handle; an anonymous brown cardboard box is discreetly tucked away in a corner, where it would be almost entirely invisible if it weren’t for the fact that the ash grey envelope tacked to it is pulsing a dark red.

“Er,” Aziraphale says, staring at the scene. “This wasn’t you, was it?”

“No, but I bet I know who it was.” Crowley makes a beeline for the box, pulls off the envelope and rips it open. Inside is a plain white card, reading:

> _Thanks. — B._
> 
> _P.S. For the record, it was all his idea._
> 
> _P.P.S. Breathe a word of this to anyone, and I’ll kill you._

“That’s what I thought,” Crowley says. “Beelzebub. The other card is probably Gabriel, then.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says, having opened it. “It says, ‘I take exception to your methods, but have no objections to the results. Thank you.’”

“It’s good to know that they’re grateful?” Crowley hadn’t quite meant it as a question, but that’s how it comes out. “What are we even meant to do with all this stuff?”

“Ah, we’ll sort through it tomorrow,” Aziraphale says, cheerfully. “Though — we might make an exception for that box, if it’s from where I think it is. Shall we take it upstairs?”

Crowley grins. “Let’s.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy new year? :D
> 
> I'd say blame [Nenchen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nenchen/pseuds/Nenchen) for this, but all she did was suggest that Gabriel, after the events of the previous fic, might get Crowley and Aziraphale one (1) gift basket. And then I latched onto the idea and ran with it the rest of the way, and this is the result.
> 
> You can find me, as always, on [Tumblr](https://wingedspirit.tumblr.com/).


End file.
